1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a document pusher plate of an image forming equipment, by which document feeding and delivery can be smoothly carried out under a stabilized condition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A document copying machine (Japanese Pat. Application No. Sho-63-61333) shown in FIG. 2 is available as a representative example of the conventional image forming equipments which are in the background of the invention. A document pusher plate 3 which can be freely opened and closed is mounted on the machine body 2 of the document copying machine 1 by means of a hinge mechanism. Such document transfer means (in this case, a document transfer roller) 6 of an automatic document feeding unit 5 as shown in FIG. 3 is arranged at the side of a document feeding device 4 of the document pusher plate 3.
Therefore, a document D which is fed from the document feeding device 4 to the automatic document feeding unit 5 pushes up a flexible thin plastic member 7 provided at a document feeding opening 7a and is sent to the document transfer roller 6.
Consecutively, as the document transfer roller 6 rotates counterclockwise in the drawing centering around an axis 8, the document D is transferred to the required exposure position on a document set plate 9. At this time, the document transfer roller 6 retains the document D between the document transfer roller 6 itself and the document set plate 9 at all times. Then, as copying job is completed, the above document transfer roller 6 rotates reversely, reverses the document D by 180.degree. by way of the thin plastic member 7 and the delivery channel 10 and delivers it through a delivery port 11.
In such a conventional copying machine 1 as shown in the above, a hinge mechanism 12 shown in FIG. 4 is arranged at the side 13 of the document transfer roller 6 (FIG. 3) of the automatic document feeding unit 5 and at the opposite side 14 thereof. Thus, the resin-made document pusher plate 3 can be opened and closed by way of the hinge mechanism 12 for the machine body 2 of the document copying machine 1.
The above hinge mechanism consists of a mounting plate 17 formed to be trough-like and fixed to the side of the document pusher plate 3, a hinge body 20 fixed to the side of the machine body 2 of the document copying machine 1 by way of an axis 18 and mounting plates 19a and 19b, and an axis 21 arranged betweena the mounting plate 17 and the hinge body 20, by which the mounting plate 17 can be rotatably supported for the hinge body 20.
Hereupon, the document pusher plate 3 is a resin molded article for the sake of low cost and light weight, and the document pusher plate 3 itself constitutes a chassis and is not provided with any special reinforcement. In addition, as the mounting plate 17 of the hinge mechanism 12 is directly fixed to the protrusions 15 and 15 of the document pusher plate 3 by means of such fixing means 16 and 16 as screws, etc., the document pusher plate 3 is insufficiently supported. Moreover, as the document pusher plate 3 is made of resin as shown in the above, warping and deflection may be caused to be present through repeatedly opening and closing the document pusher plate 3 by way of the hinge mechanism 12. Subsequently, the force with which the document transfer roller 6 pushes a document especially at the side of the automatic document feeding unit 5 of the document pusher plate 3 may get into imbalance in the axial direction, thereby causing documents not to be transferred accurately and to be skewed in transfer.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming equipment in which document can be accurately transferred by an automatic document feeding unit under a stabilized condition.